The Backstreets of Heaven
by icepixel
Summary: Bester comes to the station, and things go rapidly downhill. It's not quite a revenge tragedy, but it's definitely not fluffy and light. Ivanova/Garibaldi. Part of my Closet Idealism AU.


**Notes:** Set a couple months after "How We Were Transfigured." It combines events from "Strange Relations" and "Phoenix Rising," and there's a reference to "Dust to Dust" in here as well. At this point, I've pretty much given up on trying to work in the whole Byron thing with any accuracy, because I refuse to subject myself to the telepath arc again. Expect a considerable amount of deviation from canon in that regard. (You know, more than this AU already deviates.)

**Dedication:** To bessemerprocess, who tickled my fancy with the idea of Susan and Michael teaming up to take down Bester.

* * *

She strolls through C&C, pretending it's not the fifth time she's done so on this too-quiet morning. Her junior officers aren't even looking up when she passes by anymore. Apparently she's let discipline get lax.

"Captain," McCreary says, and Susan turns, grateful for the distraction. "We're receiving a Priority One message from EarthGov."

"I'll take it in my office."

It's just a text message, not a vidcall, so she taps her screen to open it, expecting Senator Sellers to be whining about the budget again. At the first sentence, her blood turns to ice.

Psi Corps is coming.

They want the rogue telepaths, of course. She's been half-expecting them for weeks now, ever since she promised Byron that they wouldn't get their hooks into his people as long as she runs this station.

She scrolls down to the personnel manifest. _Please, God, no,_ she thinks, but her blood sings, _Please, God, yes._

There it is. "Bester, A."

She touches her link. "Michael, I need to talk to you right now."

* * *

She meets him in her quarters. "Bester's coming," she says.

His face goes blank. "When?"

"Two hours."

He takes a deep breath, then another. His hand drifts to his PPG. She knows his blood is singing too.

"What do you need me to do?" she asks.

He shakes his head. Bester is his; his blood calls out for him. Whatever he's planning, he's going to do it alone.

She touches his arm. She should tell him to get off the station, confine him to quarters, toss him in the brig, even. Instead, she says, "I'll do whatever I can to protect you."

* * *

She arranges to be unreachable when Bester comes aboard. That way there will be no awkward questions.

When she walks into C&C later, McCreary reports that there was a PPG discharge in Bester's quarters, but that Bester himself wasn't there when it happened. Security is investigating.

Susan closes her eyes in relief. In regret.

* * *

She finds Michael pacing in his quarters that evening, his hands balled into fists. "What happened?" she asks.

No response.

"Michael." Nothing. "Michael!" She grabs his fist. He flings her off, hard enough to make her take a step back, but it does get him to stop pacing and look at her.

She's not sure she wants to hear it, but she asks again. "What happened?"

"Susan..." He shakes his head.

"Tell me."

He seems to realize she's not going to go away. "I tried...I tried to shoot him. But..." His jaw clenches. If he weren't standing perfectly still, she'd think he was battling for his life. "I couldn't."

"_What?_"

"I couldn't kill him." Each word sounds like he's dragged it from deep within himself, like every syllable is a struggle.

"I _couldn't_ kill him." Her ears prick. Was that just the slightest of emphases on "couldn't"?

"Why not?"

He is absolutely silent.

"I'm going to find out what he did to you. I promise." _And then I'm going to kill that son of a bitch._

* * *

As she's debating how best to get the information she seeks, Stephen stops her in the hall outside her office. He tells her that Michael had asked him about neural blocks, but seemed distracted and weird. Did she know why he might have wanted information on them?

He looks at her with some concern when a bitter, skeletal laugh bursts out of her mouth. She tells him she has a pretty good idea and leaves him standing in the hall, a confused expression on his face.

* * *

She manages to get through the next day without seeking him out and discharging her PPG into his chest. Being able to tell him that the telepaths will have to undergo a sixty-day quarantine before they can be transported back to Earth helps. She takes great pleasure in the brief flicker impotent rage that clouds his face.

"But surely for something of this magnitude..." He trails off, inarticulate. He'd had the arrogance to think he was going to get his way. She is more than happy to disabuse him of that notion.

"Sorry, Mr. Bester. I'm just following regulations." A cat who'd eaten ten canaries couldn't be more satisfied.

"Yes, I'm sure you are." He looks around her office, as if something there will help him. He finds nothing. "I'll see you in sixty days, Captain." He nods and turns to leave.

"Actually, you'll see me sooner," she says.

His flyer had had some trouble with its left lateral thruster on the way over and is currently sitting in a maintenance bay waiting for someone of sufficient rank to deal with the paperwork for the repairs. Given Psi Corps's, EarthGov's, and EarthForce's interlocking relationships, who's actually going to pay for it is complicated, and the forms to release any funds need his signature and one from a senior officer acknowledging they have seen and been informed of the nature of the repairs.

This suits Susan just fine. She tells him she'll meet him in the maintenance bay at 1700 to sign the paperwork. Once he leaves, she sends a message to the maintenance tech overseeing the repairs telling her not to bother coming by until 1730.

* * *

Bester walks into the maintenance bay to find her pointing her PPG at him. She thinks she sees shock flit across his face for just a moment before the mocking mask he always wears descends again. He slowly raises his hands.

"Captain Ivanova," he says. "I don't see any paperwork."

"Shove it," she snaps, and with one hand types a combination on the keypad in the wall. The inner door of the airlock they're standing next to opens. She motions with her PPG that Bester should step inside the cavity it creates.

He does, much too slowly for her liking. He makes a show of glancing around the chamber. "You're going to space me? Really, Captain. How unoriginal."

"It gets the job done," she grits out. "And it'll look like an unfortunate malfunction to anyone who inquires, not that I imagine anyone will bother for your sorry ass. Looks win-win to me." And if it isn't-well, to say she doesn't give a damn would be understating the situation a bit.

"But because I know someone who deserves the satisfaction of your very long and unpleasant incarceration, I'm going to give you a choice," she says. "You can exit this station right here, right now, which believe me, I will not regret in the slightest. Or you can undo whatever the hell it is you did to Garibaldi's head and then stand trial for all of your crimes, which should land you a nice, long stay in prison back on Earth. I imagine for a telepath of your rating, the drugs they give you to suppress your ability will be quite strong." She's using both hands to steady her aim, but she itches to hit the button that will close the inner door and then open the outer one into space. Her blood is singing again. "Well? What do you think of my offer?"

He looks at her with faint distaste. "I think it sounds remarkably like the one your lover gave me." Her finger tightens on the trigger. The son of a... "But to answer your question...no. I don't think I'll be taking either option."

"Oh, really?" She reaches out, ready to slam the button home. Her heartbeat echoes in her ears, and she wants this, she's _waited_ for this-

"You know, she talked about you. Before she...couldn't talk anymore."

The din in her head recedes.

"She told us everything. All the intimate details-what you did, what you liked...everything you felt. Although she said you were hard to crack; you always seemed to know when she was trying to read you." He raises an eyebrow. "Some mundanes can develop a sense for it, of course, but given that your mother was at least a P8, I have to admit I began to wonder about you. About what secrets you might be hiding."

The spell-Talia, _Talia_-that has held her breaks, and she reaches for the control panel. But before she can press the button that will expose him to vacuum and then quickly to oblivion, someone clamps down on her wrist and whips her around. "I can't let you do this," Michael says, his face blank, his voice low and controlled.

"What the hell are you doing?" she yells, struggling, but he's stronger than her, and she can't get away, nor reach the airlock controls. Her grip on her PPG weakens. "Now is no time to be concerned for my honor!"

Bester's laugh suddenly fills the small bay. "Is that _really_ what you think this is, Captain?"

She's too busy trying to wrestle her arm away from Michael to respond.

"While we were chatting, I told him you were very intent on sending me out this airlock. He'll kill himself before he allows me to be killed," Bester continues.

Michael has her arm twisted behind her back now, but she speaks through the pain. "Is this true?"

"You _bastard_," he says. She takes that as a yes.

Her back is to him, but she can hear Bester's voice changing locations as he steps out of the airlock. "As much fun as this has been, I think it's time we ended this little farce." A PPG jams into her back.

Within half a second, Michael's PPG is in his hands and he's aiming at Bester. Her arm suddenly goes numb from the release of pressure, and her gun clatters on the floor.

Michael's hand tightens and releases around his weapon, but she can see that he can't pull the trigger. Bester's PPG is still hard and cold against her back. They are entirely at his mercy, and he knows it.

"Killing Captain Ivanova would lead to questions I am not interested in answering," Bester says, infuriatingly calm. "So we're going to walk very slowly over to my ship. I am going to get in, and you, Captain, are going to tell your people to clear a flight path so that I may depart immediately on urgent business."

"Not on your life," she spits out.

"Not on my life, indeed. In fact, it's on yours." He nods at Michael. "Mr. Garibaldi, you will ensure that she does so, by whatever means necessary."

"Like hell." He still can't pull the trigger.

Bester stabs the muzzle of his gun into her back. "Let's go."

A PPG whine splits the charged air.

In the echoing silence that follows, Susan nearly topples over from Bester's sudden weight on her back. The stench of charred flesh reaches her nose.

She hears someone running toward them as Michael shoves Bester's corpse off of her. He catches her as she staggers forward, and for just a second, she holds onto him for all she's worth.

"Are you two all right?" Thank God for Zack Allen, she thinks, straightening and removing her arms from Michael's neck.

"Fine," they reply. Susan flexes her right wrist and hisses at the sudden pain. "Mostly fine," she amends.

Michael looks at her shamefacedly. With her good hand, she grabs his shoulder. "This was not your fault," she says in a low voice.

"Yeah, right," he murmurs back. She sets her mouth. They're going to revisit this later.

Zack still looks worried. "Look, I'm gonna take you both to MedLab, and I'm gonna get someone to mop up that mess." He pauses, glancing at Bester's body, then returning his gaze to them. "Then I'm gonna write a report about how the only way I saw of getting the two of you out of this situation alive was to kill that son of a bitch."

She nods. Eventually, Michael does too.

* * *

John finds them in MedLab while Stephen is busy splinting her sprained wrist, which they have allowed him to believe came from struggling with Bester when he held her hostage in an attempt to get Byron's telepaths. She knows that John would rather they had found a non-lethal way to ensure he paid for his sins. There's some deeply-buried well of idealism in him that even the war with Earth didn't manage to drain.

She used to have one too. Maybe she still does. Just not where Bester's concerned.

They confirm Zack's story that Bester had a PPG to her back and Michael didn't have a clear shot. It is, after all, true. Technically. John knows better than to ask any questions he doesn't have to, and he just tells them to make sure they know what they're going to tell the EarthGov official who gets stuck doing the inquiry.

Stephen releases them on the condition that they both take it easy for the next twenty-four hours. They retreat to her quarters, where she makes tea, automatically putting three sugars in his cup before handing it to him.

She holds up her cup when they reach the couch. "Here's to Bester. May he rot in hell."

He clinks his cup against hers, but his eyes are shadowed as he takes a sip.

"Don't," she says. "Don't you dare tell me I shouldn't have done it. What he did to you was enough, but I had my own reasons, too."

He sighs. "I just wish...you hadn't had to."

She grabs his hand and squeezes tightly. "This was not your fault." She has a feeling she's going to be saying that a lot.

Silence creeps between them as he steadily avoids her gaze. "You know, this wasn't the first time I tried," she blurts out.

Now he does look at her, his eyes wide. She tells him about the time two years ago when she nearly succeeded in blowing Bester's transport out of the sky. "Fight them without becoming them," John had told her. God knows she'd tried. But there were only so many ghosts she could ignore, and only so many times she could give him the benefit of the doubt. They had trusted him during the Shadow War, and he had fucked them over the moment it was convenient. His control over Michael had nearly cost them Sheridan, and the campaign against Earth. Anyone he thought necessary could become a mere pawn in his chess game, a tool to be used and discarded in the service of his agendas.

Hell, the way she sees it, they did the galaxy a great service today.

Michael clears his throat. "Look," he says. "This is...really weird, but I have to say it. Thank you." His fingers close around hers. "Thank you."

She considers this for a second. "You're right; it is weird. But you're welcome." She smiles, then begins to laugh at the absurdity of their conversation. In a moment, the laugh turns to tears.

He pulls her to his chest, allowing her to quietly but thoroughly soak his shoulder as he rocks them, kissing her ear, her temple, her hair, again and again.

It feels like eons until she stops. Michael runs his hand down her back and lets her sit up. His eyes are red. He touches his thumb to the wetness that remains on her cheek. "Are you going to be okay?"

She breathes for a moment, and finally nods. "In time."

The fact that she was ready to commit cold-blooded murder is not something she's going to forget. But she will never regret it.

"Are you?" she asks.

"In time," he echoes.

All they can do is wait.

* * *

**N.B.** The title comes from "Cruel and Pretty," by Over the Rhine.


End file.
